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Nick Gillespie

You don’t need a weatherman to know which way journalists blow

So what then explains the contortions that journalists fold themselves into like so many carnival sideshow rubber-men in defending their hero? Mike Riggs points to comments by rising liberal MSNBC pundit Toure that suggest just how far explicitly pro-Obama liberals are willing to go in excusing the president’s declaring himself and his crew judge, jury, and executioner. As Riggs explains, it seems pretty clear that Toure isn’t up to speed on specifics, especially when it comes to the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki’s 16-year-old son:

“When his co-hosts continue to press him on the consequences of a small group of individuals determing who deserves to die without a shred of oversight, Touré dismisses them by saying, “Al Qaeda attacked this nation. We are attacking al Qaeda back.” On Twitter Touré simply said, “He’s the Commander in Chief.””

Al Qaeda is the new Communism, dig? To invoke its name is to settle all arguments. If Toure is just light on facts, the recent defense of Obama’s kill list machinations from Michael Tomasky is more illuminating of the mind-set that controls journalists. …

Tomasky struggles with the in-your-face spectacle of a president saying he has the right to pick which Americans can be killed unilaterally by insisting that the important thing is to walk a mile in Obama’s mocassins…

Blowback

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I never had a problem with the bias.
We all do it and listen to or follow media sources that reflect our views.
The the thing that pisses me off is the blatant in your face dishonesty.
They will lie right to your face and couldn’t care less about being busted on it.
A news anchor can go in front of millions and just fling out an easily disproven whopper and if they get some political juice from it they will just keep telling it.
They know they are lying but to them their agenda is so important it does not matter how they accomplish it.

They know.
We know.
Everybody knows.
If Bush pulled this stunt they would be screaming at the top of their lungs about the Constitution and how he does not have that authority.
They have admitted it and then still say …yeah…so what.
Obama can do anything he wants.

What happened to all of the war protestors? They seemed to have magically disappeared.

Vera71 on February 8, 2013 at 9:38 AM

Which is an example of why I say the left does not care about the issue. They only care about how something can be used politically. It to the point that I believe that if all the conservatives came out and supported SSM that the left would start to demonize it because support of it would no longer be of value to them.

This isn’t ultimately about ideological hypocrisy – of liberals changing their tune once their guy is in office – but something much more basic and much more disturbing. It reveals that for all their crowing about being watchdogs of all that is good and decent in society, when push comes to shove, too many journalists are ready and willing handmaidens to power – including the power to kill.